2017లో నేను చదివిన పుస్తకాలు

2017 నావరకూ ఒక విలక్షణమైన సంవత్సరం. సంవత్సరంలో పూర్వార్థం మొత్తం తానా సంబంధితమైన ఒత్తిళ్ళతో గడిస్తే, ద్వితీయార్థం కొన్నేళ్ళుగా పట్టించుకోని వ్యక్తిగతమైన విషయాలను ఒక పద్ధతిలోకి తెచ్చుకోవటంలో గడచింది. చదువుకొనే సమయం ఎక్కువగా దొరకలేదు. గత రెండు సంవత్సరాలలో సేకరించిన చాలా పుస్తకాలు అలాగే మిగిలిపోయి ఉన్నాయి. పుస్తకం.నెట్‌కు ఏమైనా రాసి సంవత్సరం దాటిందనుకుంటాను. నిజానికి 2017లో ఇటు పక్కకు వచ్చింది కూడా తక్కువే. ఈ సంవత్సరంలో ఎక్కువగా చదివిన పుస్తకాలు కాలక్షేపం కోసమే అవటంతో, ప్రతి సంవత్సరం వ్రాస్తున్న పుస్తకాల జాబితా వ్రాయటానికి కొంత సందేహించినా, అలవాటు వదలలేక తీరిగ్గా గుర్తున్నంతవరకూ ఇప్పటికి పూర్తిచేసి ఇక్కడ పంచుకుంటున్నాను.

ENGLISH

General:

Live Cinema and Its Techniques — Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola experiments with a new concept – live shooting of a film (continuous shooting of a film instead of setting up each shot separately). Interesting autobiographical anecdotes punctuate the book. I did not see much point in his concept though.

The New York Times Book of Crime: more than 166 years of covering the beat — Edited by Kevin Flynn; Foreword by Richard Price. Many interesting stories that are part of the American lore.

Whiplash: how to survive our faster future — Joi Ito and Jeff Howe. A thought provoking read as Ito, the director of MIT’s Media lab, enunciates 9 principles that he thinks will help us (individuals and organizations) transition better to an ever changing future. They are: 1. Disobedience over compliance; 2. Pull over push; 3. Compasses over maps; 4. Emergence over authority; 5. Learning over education; 6. Resilience over strength; 7. Risk over safety; 8. Practice over theory; 9. Systems over Objects.

How The Zebra Got Its Stripes: Darwinian stories told through evolutionary biology — Léo Grasset; [translation by Barbar Mellor]. Interesting accounts of how evolutionary biology seems to work. A good introduction to the subject.

The Not-Quite States of America: dispatches from the territories and other far-flung outposts of the USA — Doug Mack. Coincidentally, I was reading this book about the same time North Korea began talking about how their missiles can reach Guam, a US territory. Shortly thereafter Puerto Rico suffered a devastating hurricane. The book is a detailed account of these and the many other territories and colonies that the US has in Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, discussing the history, geography, culture, and the legal status.

Weapons of Math Destruction: how Big Data increases inequality and threatens democracy – Cathy O’Neil. Big Data is seen as the pathway to getting answers to many of the current social problems. However, Cathy O’Neil, a mathematician and a former quant (hedge fund analyst) makes a forceful case of how the assumptions, biases and errors that underlie the models can distort the understanding of issues and cause even more problems. Thought provoking even if her arguments seemed a bit overwrought at times. Thanks V.B.Sowmya.

Memoirs, Biographies:

Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee – The wit and wisdom of Muhammad Ali. A well produced small book of great photographs and interesting quotes from The Greatest (AKA The Champ). Thanks Indrani Palaparti.

Between Them – Richard Ford. Richard Ford writes the biographies of his father and mother. His father was a traveling salesman largely absent from home and died when Richard was 16; his mother, who lived much longer, never fully recovered from that loss. A well crafted, insightful account of people from a not so distant past.

A Fantastic Ride – Bob Rohrman. Bob Rohrman is one of the biggest auto dealers in the Chicago area. He (and his friends and family members) talk about how he came to this stage from his humble beginnings in rural Wisconsin.

Dreams, Determination, Triumph – Dr. Lakshmi Saleem. A fascinating life story of Dr. Lakshmi Saleem, the first female plastic surgeon in Andhra Pradesh, her constant struggles against gender bias in India and UK, her inter-religious marriage and her scholastic and philanthropic work.

Pullela Gopichand: The world beneath his feet – Sanjay Sharma and Shachi Sharma. An inspirational story of an admirable, disciplined and focused sports icon with an exemplary talent. Thanks to Sri Atluri for providing me the book.

The Elephants in My Backyard: a memoir — Rajiv Surendra. Rajiv Surendra is a young Canadian actor of Indian origin. He read Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, and is struck by the similarities between him and Pi. When the movie was announced, he thought that he would be a perfect fit for the role of young Pi. He obsessively pursues the role for almost a decade, and even goes to spend some time in Pondicherry to better acquaint himself with the area where the fictional Pi grew up. This is his account of his journey of growth and self-discovery during this time. Very interesting read. (He did not get the part.)

Novels:

Taduno’s Song — Odafe Atogun. Atogun is a Nigerian author not known to me earlier. In this Kafkaesque novel, a banished singer returns to his native land to rescue his beloved who was kidnapped by government agents. No one recognizes him or remembers his existence. His voice has disappeared. He now needs to discover his voice and recover his people and his beloved. An interesting novel.

A Simple Favor — Darcey Bell. A naive blogger mom is asked by her best friend to pick up her son from school as she is going to be late. After that, the friend disappears without a trace. What happened to her and how it envelops the life of the protagonist forms this interesting story. I understand that this is being made into a film.

Espresso Shot — Cleo Coyle. Apparently one of a series of murder-mystery adventures featuring Clare Cosi, the manager of a coffee house, The Village Blend, in the Greenwich Village of New York. Clare gets roped in to set up a gourmet coffee and desert bar for the wedding of her ex-husband with an over achieving super aggressive woman that Clare is not fond of. Suddenly, there are multiple murders and murder attempts that she has to deal with. Interesting set-up and entertaining.

Memory Theater — Simon Critchley. A small book involving an academic philosopher and his quest to build the perfect memory palace. Became tedious after a while.

The Trout — Peter Cunningham. An Irish expatriate author living in Canada has to return to Ireland to unravel a mystery from his vague childhood memories. A very well crafted book with strong characters and a contemporary theme set in the past.

Chicago — Brian Doyle. I thoroughly enjoyed this quirky novel, an ode to our city of big shoulders, written from the viewpoint of a recently arrived journalist, living in an apartment house full of interesting people. Includes a dog with magical abilities.

In The Language of Miracles — Rajia Hassib. An Egyptian Muslim immigrant family in New Jersey is devastated when their teenage son kills the neighbor’s daughter and then kills himself. A memorial is being held for the girl on the first anniversary of the incident. The father, a physician, thinks he should attend the memorial and speak there. The usually docile and culturally conditioned mother is not comfortable with the idea, but cannot go against her husband. The high school going younger son, a blogger about butterflies, is trying to deal with the aftermath of his brother’s actions and dealing with the throes of his first love. There is a delightful character of the grandmother, a woman from the old world. Rajia Hassib deftly combines the issues of immigration, longing for one’s roots, the swirling cauldron of a small town at a time of prejudice in the face of an enigmatic tragedy.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows — Balli Kaur Jaswal. This delightful novel is centered around the Punjabi community of London’s Southhall. A young second generation girl, an aspiring author, who grew up away from Southhall culture and her roots, takes on an assignment to teach writing to a group of elderly Punjabi women of varying ages, all of them widows. It turns out that most of the women have never learnt even to read and write. As things evolve, they collaborate on bringing out a collection of erotic fantasies authored by the widows. As the news leaks out, all kinds of complications arise.

At Home in Mitford — Jan Karon. First in a series of books about Mitford, a fictional small southern town still clinging to its bucolic past with many interesting characters including a laid back preacher, a large dog, an uncouth waif, and a new neighbor. A pleasant throwback to a time that has passed in most parts.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, or, On the segregation of the queen — Laurie R. King. The ageing Sherlock Holmes has retired to a country life where he is befriended by a precocious young neighbor, Mary Russell. Holmes starts training this brilliant young woman and together they rescue a kidnapped child. This enrages the villainous mastermind that targets Mary setting up a battle of wits. Laurie King gets into the Conan Doyle time and style easily and sets up her heroine admirably in an endearing fashion while humaning the unfamiliarly avuncular Holmes.

A Grave Talent — Laurie R. King. Inspector Kate Martinelli’s first big assignment in her new job in San Francisco has her investigating the serial murders of young girls which seems to be connected to a commune in the neighboring woods. A good mystery.

White Tears – Hari Kunzru. I was not much impressed by an earlier novel of Kunzru. But, this is of a very different genre and written quite well. The novel starts with Carter, a rich slacker collecting rare blues vinyl records, and Seth, his talented audio engineer friend and collaborator, discovering some obscure music and passing it off under the name of an invented singer. Then, they are contacted by a collector who claims to have more recordings of the same singer. This plunges Seth into a mysterious and perilous journey. The novel is part blues history, part race relations and part a possible ghost story. Kunzru mixes this well with impressive prose.

The Greenfather — by John Marshall. An environmentally conscious organic and health food grocer, a mafia scion, is drafted to head the ‘family business’ and decides to use the mob to promote healthy eating and green practices. A spoof of The Godfather, the book starts well but peters out after a while.

The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome — Man Martin. A sometimes funny novel about a linguistics professor in a small college who gets afflicted with a peculiar syndrome of unpredictable periods of immobility and tries an unusual remedy suggested by Dr. Limongello.

The Bertie Project — Alexander McCall Smith. It appears that I stumbled on a series called 44th Scotland Street based in Edinburgh about Bertie, a hapless boy whose mother is determined to raise him with all her principles about healthy food and healthy psyche. A bunch of interesting characters and incidents populate this entertaining book.

Who Asked You? — Terry McMillan. BJ, Betty Jean, is an African American grandma working as a room service person in a hotel is taking care of her husband suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, when her daughter dumps her two young children on her and disappears. There is a whole lot of other issues that BJ has to deal with – two sisters, a successful son that is on his fifth marriage with a blonde, another son in jail, and a grandson that is getting lured into the drug trade. She has the support of her neighbor, a white woman married to a black man and living in the ghetto. I found the novel to be well written and was quite impressed by the sassy protagonist, who lives her life well despite many odds against her.

The Lilac House — Anita Nair. In the first chapter, we find Meera, a corporate wife and successful author of books advising other corporate wives, being abandoned abruptly by her husband during a party. Meera and her family live in the Lilac House, an old family home with her mother and grandmother. Meera has to find a way to support her family and she takes up a job as a secretary to JAK, an expert on cyclones, returning to India to take care of a child left in a coma after being brutally traumatized under mysterious circumstances. Interesting characters interacting under unusual circumstances. Apparently, this has been made into a National Award winning film, Lessons in Forgetting

A Promise of Ruin — Cuyler Overholt. A novel set in New York of the early 1900s where immigrants landed from Europe at the Ellis Island. A gang has been duping Italian young women immigrating into the city and trafficking them into prostitution. Dr. Genivieve Summerford, one of the few female doctors of the time gets drawn into investigating the disappearance of a young Italian immigrant girl, at great peril to herself. Apparently part of a series of novels with this heroine, the author does a splendid job of recreating the New York city in its early phase and creating enough suspense and intrigue.

Mrs. Fletcher – Tom Perotta. A biting, quirky commentary on modern life including an empty nester single working mom in a small town that gets drawn into internet porn, a self-absorbed son that went to college to party, a trans-gender professor and a whole host of other characters thrown together. Perotta is highly regarded and this book got very good reviews. I found it to be meandering after a while.

All We Shall know — Donal Ryan. The book chapters follow Melody’s pregnancy from the 12th week onwards week by week. Melody, an Irish woman who was unable to bring a child to term with her husband Pat, becomes pregnant from a one-time liaison with Martin Toppy, a Traveller (gypsy) boy that she was tutoring. Pat leaves her. In trying to reach Martin, Melody meets Mary Crothery, a Traveller young woman with the gift of prophecy, whose own separation from her husband starts a terrible war between rival Traveler clans and much tragedy. Ryan writes very well and caught my interest right at the opening sentence.

The Best of Adam Sharp — Graeme Simsion. A novel of tangled relationships, set to a background of music. I found it difficult to relate to.

Persons Unknown — Susie Steiner. Manon Bradshaw is a police investigator who recently moved from London to Cambridgeshire so that her adopted son, Fry, can have a better life. But Fry, the only black kid in a white neighborhood, is unhappy. Her new pregnancy only complicates her relationship with Fry. Then, Fry gets arrested for a murder that Manon was investigating and Manon is now off the case. She needs to find the real murderer to save her son. A well written mystery that deals with relationships.

The Keeper of Secrets — Julie Thomas. A very interesting novel centered around a precious violin, a 1742 Guarnerius, and Daniel Harowitz, a child prodigy. Young Harowtiz’s mother wants him to stop playing baseball as it can hurt his violin playing hands, and, in rebellious pique, he refuses to play violin anymore. Daniel’s grandfather belonged to a wealthy banker family in Berlin and was a violinist playing a Guarnerius. He survives the Nazi concentration camps though he loses everything including his precious violin. The violin ends up with a Russian oligarch. A Spanish conductor and a rare violin dealer attempt to reunite Daniel with the violin so that Daniel can be coaxed back into playing. A very interesting novel that traverses many diverse settings with interesting characters, with a lot of information about violins as a bonus.

Sisters — Lily Tuck. A short, well written book, written as a series of small vignettes exploring the insecurities of a woman with regards to her husband’s ex-wife, and the mother of her step children, the mysterious ‘she’. Her daily life has many reminders of the woman that she never met and she cannot help wondering about how she compares with that unknown person, a ‘sister’ in some way.

A Wrongful Death — Kate Wilhelm.

The Code of the Woosters – P.G. Wodehouse. Revisiting an old classic; always fun, comforting and relaxing.

Uncle Fred in Springtime – P.G. Wodehouse. Ditto

Stories:

The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 — Edited and with an introduction by Elizabeth George; Otto Penzler, Series Editor. As always, a delightful and intriguing collection of well crafted stories, some of them exploring human relationships and psyche.

No Middle Name: the complete collected Jack Reacher short stories – Lee Child. Well written adventures of Jack Reacher, a military intelligence veteran.

Love Stories in This Town — Amanda Eyre Ward. A series of well written, generally short, stories exploring the issue of relationships. Some of the stories have a recurring character.

The Best of Wodehouse: an anthology — P. G. Wodehouse (Edited by John Mortimer). Many Jeeves stories and a few others are in this anthology along with a good biography of Wodehouse and chronology.

Humor and Satire: 

Best. State. Ever.: A Florida man defends his homeland — Dave Barry. The humorist Dave Barry sets out to defend and restore the reputation of his native state; not too sure if it is such a good thing for Florida.

Travelogue:

The Longest Road: overland in search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean — Philip Caputo. An interesting account of a septuagenarian and his wife traveling across the length of America in a camper with a mission of understanding what unites America.

తెలుగు

అనువాదాలు

శివగామి కథ (బాహుబలి పూర్వాంకం) – ఆనంద్ నీలకంఠన్; (అను) వేమూరి రమాంజనీకుమారి
తమస్ – డా. భీష్మ సహాని; (అను) డా. యార్లగడ్డ లక్ష్మీ ప్రసాద్
అవ్యయ – సౌభాగ్య కుమార మిశ్ర; (అను) వేలూరి వెంకటేశ్వర రావు, వెనిగళ్ళ బాలకృష్ణరావు

నవలలు
తోడు – అక్కినాపల్లి సుబ్బారావు
మరో వసంతం – అక్కినాపల్లి సుబ్బారావు
సంజ వెలుగు – అక్కినాపల్లి సుబ్బారావు
సత్య – అర్నాద్
నీల – కె.ఎన్.మల్లీశ్వరి
స్క్రిప్ట్ సిద్ధంగా ఉంది సినిమా తియ్యండి – పొత్తూరి విజయలక్ష్మి
రంగవల్లి – పోరంకి దక్షిణామూర్తి
శప్తభూమి – బండి నారాయణస్వామి
పాటలి – మల్లాది వసుంధర
నాగమల్లికలు – మాదిరెడ్డి సులోచన
అందగాడు – మాదిరెడ్డి సులోచన
అన్నమయ్య (సంక్షిప్త నవలీకరణ) – రాజా
ఒంటరి – సన్నపురెడ్డి వెంకటరామిరెడ్డి
ఇక్కడ జూదమాడంగరాదు – శ్రీధరమూర్తి
హంసగీతం – వివిన మూర్తి
విష్ణుశర్మ ఇంగ్లీషు చదువు – విశ్వనాధ సత్యనారాయణ

కథలు
వానజల్లు – ఇచ్ఛాపురపు జగన్నాథరావు
ఈ కథ కి శిల్పం లేదు — జొన్నవిత్తుల శ్రీరామచంద్రమూర్తి
పూర్వి – పొత్తూరి విజయలక్ష్మి
పొత్తూరి విజయలక్ష్మి హాస్యకథలు – పొత్తూరి విజయలక్ష్మి
సదానంద్ శారద కథలు — సదానంద్ శారద
కనిపించని చెయ్యి– హెచ్చార్కె
కొత్త కథ – (సం:) కుప్పిలి పద్మ, అక్కిరాజు భట్టిప్రోలు
ప్రాతినిధ్య కథ 2016 — (సం) ప్రమీల ముసునూరి, సామాన్య
కథ 2016 — (సం) పి. సత్యవతి, కె.పి. అశోక్ కుమార్

స్వీయం
అండమాన్ డైరీ – దాసరి అమరేంద్ర
ఫేస్బుక్‌తొ ఐదేళ్ళు – హెచ్చార్కె
వెలుగు దారులలో – నంబూరి పరిపూర్ణ స్వీయచరిత్ర
ఆమె (musings) – నరేష్ నున్నా
జ్ఞాపకాల జావళి – పొత్తూరి విజయలక్ష్మి

కవిత్వం
భావజలధి – డా. కడియాల వాసుదేవరావు
ఇంటికొచ్చిన వర్షం – పాలపర్తి ఇంద్రాణి
కుందాపన – రవి వీరెల్లి
సంకేత స్థలం – హెచ్చార్కె

బాల సాహిత్యం (తానా-మంచిపుస్తకం బాల సాహిత్య పోటీలు 2017 విజేతలు)
రామదండు – అనూరాధ (సుజల గంటి)
మామయ్యతో కిట్టూ సాహస యాత్ర – కంచనపల్లి వేంకట కృష్ణారావు
షహీన్ – జి. రవి కిరణ్
ఉనిమా లోకంలో – పి.ఎస్.ఎస్.ఎన్. మూర్తి
బబచి తాతయ్య – పుట్టగుంట సురేష్ కుమార్
గుడ్డేళ్ళగుమ్మి మారెమ్మ – భూపాల్
e-తరం కుర్రోడు – నారంశెట్టి ఉమామహేశ్వరరావు
మేధ-017 – సలీం
కిట్టూ సాహసం – డా. రావెళ్ళ శ్రీనివాసరావు
నల్లమలలో – శాఖమూరి శ్రీనివాస్
కోతులదాడి- శీను తెలివి – వాసంతి

ఇతరం
అక్షర శ్వాస – అరుణ్‌సాగర్
కొంచెం శ్రీశ్రీ కొంచెం అజంతా కొంచెం రంగనాయకమ్మ ఇస్మాయిల్ చలం – హెచ్చ్చార్కె (సాహిత్య వ్యాసాలు)